Ex parte Chen; HCCLA

fight for zero

In my most recent public post, I mentioned two things that I want to flesh out with a smaller audience.

The Fourteenth Court is plainly right about the statute, section 42.07(a)(7) of the Texas Penal Code, but wrong in how it got there (topic for another post).

and

I don’t like the direction the organization has taken (about which more perhaps later)…

Second things first.

HCCLA

The oft-perspicacious Scott Greenfield wrote:

… Thankfully, this was before the metamorphosis of criminal defense bar associations into the social justice wing of the progressive party, which I suspect is what Bennett is talking about with the “direction the organization has taken.” …

Two things happened to sour HCCLA for me. I pointed toward them here and here, but I don’t think I’ve described them.

First, a four-year lawyer named D’Angelo Lowe published, on Facebook, messages I’d sent to the HCCLA listserv with offensive truths—that Black men are, as a matter of fact, more likely to be killed by other Black men…